Precipice
by Leraiv Snape
Summary: One-shot reflection on Sherlock's thoughts as he stands on the rooftop and says goodbye to John Watson. Spoilers for 'The Reichenbach Fall'.


Disclaimer: All rights to _Sherlock_ belong to the BBC, compliments to Mr. Gatiss and Mr. Moffat. The original work is the property of Sir Conan-Doyle.

A/N: A short one-shot as Sherlock stands on the edge of the roof. Spoilers for 'The Reichenbach Fall'. This is a companion-sequel of sorts to 'Unwanted Revelations', but if you have watched Sherlock through the end of the second season, it also works as a stand alone. Any dialogue you recognize is from the series. Enjoy.

Precipice

There is no way out. Sherlock stares at the blood trickling in rivers and tributaries from the back of James Moriarty's head, staining the cement in a spider web of crimson.

" _Your friends will die if you don't."_

He steps up to the roof. He doesn't want the killers getting impatient. And his people are nearly in position anyway. He will jump, as was planned, execute his own plan and his brother's will—

The black cab diving around the corner could be anyone. But Sherlock knows it's John, even before it jerks to a halt, even before the door opens and he can see the distinctive, short-cropped hair of his flat mate.

Swallowing the urge to simply jump, to get it over with without this travesty that Mycroft oh-so-logically made him see as necessary, he forces himself to press the right key.

" _Caring is not an advantage."_

Listens as it dials.

" _Will caring about them help me save them?"_

Rings.

 _Yes. This time, caring about them is_ all _that will save him._

Click.

" _Hello?"_

"John."

" _Hey, Sherlock, you okay?"_

"Turn around and walk back to where you came."

" _No, I'm coming in."_

"Just do…as I ask." His voice is already shaking. He swallows, tries to order it back into normalcy. "Please."

" _Where?"_ But even as he asks, he's obeying, because he _always_ does, because he's John, and John trusts him, Sherlock, completely and implicitly—

— " _We're going to step in front of that bus."_

 _And there were no objections. John merely followed suit as they darted forward—_

His chest is too tight. His ribs have become iron bands about his lungs.

"Stop there."

" _Sherlock…"_

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."

John turns. Stops as he sees Sherlock perched on the very edge. The pause tells him everything. Tells him that John knows, that John has gone from furious—

" _She's_ dying _!_ _You_ machine… _Sod this. Sod this. You stay here, if you want, on your own."_ —

—to understanding—

" _Alone is what I have, alone protects me."_

—to terror.

" _Oh, God,"_ the faint murmur comes across the line. And Sherlock can hear in it: _make this not be real._

"I – I – I can't come down, so we'll just have to do it like this."

John is far enough way that the detective can't see his features. But it doesn't matter. Every expression John makes – from exasperation to fury to silent laughter to quiet grief – is stenciled on the detective's heart. He knows what his friend's face looks like now.

Knows he could change it. Knows that if he did, Moriarty's now-unstoppable gunmen would not leave them space for a breath of relief.

" _What's going on?"_

"An apology." John isn't going to believe it, can't believe, knows it's a lie—

—" _You're worried they're right about me."_

" _No." And there it was. The total conviction. The bedrock of John Watson. 'No'. Empires had been built on less solid foundations_ —

And it is this foundation…Sherlock grits his teeth, locks his jaw. This unshakable belief has to be broken.

"It's all true."

At this, John takes a physical step back, as if he can distance himself from Sherlock's words. " _What?"_

"Everything they said about me. I…invented Moriarty."

 _"Why are you saying this?"_ Not ' _how could you do this to me_.' Not ' _I can't believe this'_ (the first step to believing is denial, it allows that there is something to deny)—

—" _No. I know you're for real."_

" _A hundred percent?"_

" _No one could fake being such an annoying dick_ all _the time."_ —

Sherlock wishes he could allow John to come up here. Wishes he could cover his doctor's thin mouth with his own, push all of the emotions he's never been good at expressing aloud into the smaller man. Wishes he'd spoken of it minutes, hours, days – months ago. John Watson understands him. Even Lestrade's glimmer of doubt, the slice shoved in by Donovan's relentless hounding, hasn't shaken the doctor. Can't. His faith in Sherlock is the type most only strive to achieve in regards to a higher deity – seamless, smooth, unrelenting, unbreakable.

"I'm a fake." He wants to think that he allows the emotion into his voice. He is a consummate actor when his profession calls for it, knows that John has seen him turn on tears, fear, compassion.

But this is less-than-half-performance, he can't leash the desperate grief if he tries. The part of himself that cannot stop assessing John's reactions is turning his stomach, is flushing his spine with ice, is closing his throat.

 _"Sherlock—"_

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade. I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson…and Molly…" the disbelief in John's stance nearly breaks him, "in fact, tell…anyone who will listen to you… That I created Moriarty. For my own purposes."

The phone call is being recorded. Probably by no fewer than a dozen different agencies worldwide. They have to believe. Sherlock has to sell them.

Child's play. The real person he has to sell is standing below him on the street, limned in desperation and anguish and hope – because as long as Sherlock hasn't stepped off the building, John can save him, John can talk him out of it—

 _"M'kay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up. The first time we met, the_ first time we met, _you knew all about my sister, right?"_

"Nobody could be that clever."

 _"You could."_

Absolute belief. The smile that breaks free on his face is unbidden, strained by pain, and completely genuine. He's mad. His brother is psychotic. How can he do this? How can he walk away—

— _The superintendent came out stiffly, head tilted back at an outrageous angle, tissue covered in blood pressed to his nose._

 _John Watson slammed into the car next to him. Sherlock stared. Unbelievable._

 _This was the man Mycroft insisted he leave behind…_

" _Joining me?"_

" _Yeah," John grunted as one of the coppers applied pressure to his back. "Apparently, it's against the law to chin the chief superintendent."_ —

Moriarty's delighted, mad, infuriating guarantee: " _Your friends will die."_

That's how. He will do this. He will make him believe. Even if something much more precious than his body is about to smash against the pavement below.

"I researched you. Before we met, I discovered…everything I could to impress you." Even from this distance, he can feel John's eyes close in pain…

…and it claws its way out of him, the need to leave him with a hint, even if he won't figure it out, even though grief will obliterate it, "It's a trick. It's just a magic trick."

 _"No. All right, stop it now."_ And John is coming for the building, clearly finished talking, and if he sees the preparations that will save Sherlock's life, it will all have been for nothing—

"No, stay _exactly_ where you are," Sherlock commands sharply. "Don't move."

 _"All right."_ John holds his free hand up in a gesture of surrender as he retreats – and Sherlock's own hand rises in response, as if to connect their fingertips by channeling the polluted London air. He can see in the measured tread that all of John's being is zeroed in on precisely one, impossible objective: the task of keeping Sherlock alive.

"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please. Will you do this for me?"

 _"Do what?"_

"This phone call, it's, um…" His throat closes. He can't get the words out—

—" _You're a bit like my dad. He's dead." Molly bit her lip as he quirked an eyebrow at her, wondering where on earth she was going with this. He didn't have time now to deal with babbling morticians. "No, sorry—"_

" _Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area."_

 _With a deep breath, she forged ahead anyway. "When he was dying, he was always cheerful, he was lovely. Except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once. He looked…sad—"_

 _John was too near them to be having this conversation. Sherlock didn't want him overhearing, couldn't bear the scrutiny in the coming twenty-four hours that were all they had left. "Molly…" he said in warning._

" _You look sad," she continued softly, "when you think he can't see you." Her brown eyes flittered to John, who stood thoroughly engrossed in his piece of the experiment. Sherlock simply stared at her. Was he so blindingly obvious? So patently incapable of concealing that he was already mourning what he was about to lose?_ —

He has to say it. It has to be irrevocable. Has to leave no chance that John will think there's any way of following him. "It's my note." The traffic is loud in the ear pressed to the phone, replacing John's breathing. "It's what people do, don't they?" John still isn't breathing on the other end of the line. "Leave a note."

John shakes his head furiously, and when he speaks again, it has the cadence of cut-off tears. _"Leave a note, when?"_

"Goodbye, John."

 _"No. Don't—"_ He can't finish, can't even give voice to the precipice they're teetering on, and Sherlock has to wonder if now is the time to say it, to tell him the truth that Mycroft had only guessed at a double handful of days ago.

No. The cruelty of such a statement now, right before he falls, before he puts himself out of John's reach, the doctor will believe their separation will be forever—

He hits the 'END' button before he can surrender to weakness, tosses the phone aside.

"SHERLOCK!"

He wants to remember John. The way he shakes his head when he finds a new specimen in the fridge. The way he chuckles at the purely ridiculous Monty Python, and sighs at the detective's objections to late night television. He wants the imprint of John's hand in his breast pocket fishing out a mobile, the twitch at the corner of his mouth when he's hiding laughter from a frustrated Lestrade. His smiles – all thirteen of them (delighted, concerned, disbelieving, awestruck, curious, pained, exasperated, ironic, furious, amused, hidden, compassionate, understanding).

But it is his name, torn as a howl from the wounded, that will shape his nightmares. The raw sound of a man's soul grated by despair that will cut tomorrow, and the day after that…and the day after that.

They are out of time. " _Unless my people see you jump."_

Below him, they're ready. John Watson is just beginning to move—

—" _There's something I need to do."_

 _"Can I help?"_

 _Sherlock swallowed against the nearly reflexive desire to say, 'Yes, yes, John, always.'_

 _But he could not. Could not._ 'What will he do, if he knows you're alive?' _Mycroft's steely quiet question floated past him._

" _No. On my own."_ —

—Sherlock steps off the roof.

888

A/N: Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.


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